1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, a printing system and a function setting method of the printing system.
2. Description of Prior Art
Recently, a Multi Function Peripheral (MFP) provided with a printer function and a scanner function has been widely used. And accompanied by multiplication of functions, operations are becoming complicated to set various kinds of functions. To solve this problem, there is an idea of using a large display screen to enable concurrent display of a lot of information, however, due to installation space and parts cost, using the large screen is not easy. Further, there is another idea to improve operability by devising the structure of the screen or a hierarchical structure. However, since a frequently used function differs according to a user or installation circumstances, it is difficult to make easy setting operations for all the functions. If each function is configured to be set across a plurality of hierarchical structures, the operations becomes large in scale and complicated.
Based on the above background, a new method to improve the operability of an MFP is required. For example, disclosed in Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-280519 (Patent Document 1) is a printer system which includes: a printing apparatus provided with a position information recording medium which records different information on front and back surfaces; a reading device to readout the position information recorded on the position information recording medium; a control program which transfers the position information, obtained from the recording medium recorded with the position information by the reading device, toward an application program; and an application program which is capable of communication with the control program to transfer the position information from the position information recording medium, and installed with a recording medium position determining function to measure the inclination angle of the recording medium from the obtained position information, and a print position adjusting function to correct the print position to be the same inclination angle with the inclined recording medium with respect to print information before sending to the printing apparatus, wherein the application program allows the print information adjusted with print position to be printed as it is.
Further disclosed in Patent Document 1 is a function allocation executing method in which by dividing the position information recording medium into arbitrary areas, allocating specific functions (such as an OCR, applications, and handwriting comparison, encryption, calculation and data base association) to the position corresponding to each of the arbitrary divided areas, a printer forms a stylized sheet based on the allocation; and by writing data on the stylized sheet of position information recording medium, transmitting the position information in the arbitrary divided area to an operating computer by use of a position information acquiring device (digital pen), executes the function allocated to each area based on the position information.
According to the above Patent Document 1, areas are divided on a sheet, in which position detection patterns are previously embedded, and a specific function is allocated to a divided area data and position information written in the area are obtained with an electronic pen; and the function allocated to the data in the area is executed based on the obtained position information. In this method, in cases of setting the function by transiting plural screens, selections of the function by use of plural sheets are required, which causes problems of poor operability.
Further according to the conventional method, since previously determined functions are allocated on the sheet, there may be cases where a user cannot select the desired function to be executed, and due to a lot of functions being printed on the sheet, the desired function may be difficult to identify.
The present invention is accomplished in view of the above problems, and the main objective is to provide an image forming apparatus and a function setting method of the image forming apparatus with which functions can be easily set even for functions which require transition of plural screens, in case of setting.
Further, the technology of Patent Document 1 enables to form a stylized sheet for executing a specific function previously allocated to each divided area however, since MFP is provided with many functions and functions required by users are various, the stylized sheet is not convenient. Thus, the prior technology enables users to operate a panel and select desired functions from the various functions, and form a sheet (to be referred as function setting printed material) allocated with the selected functions.
However, in cases where after a user forms and prints his/her own function setting printed material, prints the same material again, prints by editing the material, or forms and prints his/her own function setting printed material by reference of the material formed by another user, the user needs to select the functions for allocating on the sheet by use of a panel or the like, which prevents easy formation of the function setting printed material. Specifically, in cases where function selection screen 40 has a hierarchical structure and the function needs to be selected by transiting plural screens, it takes long time for selecting the function.
The present invention is accomplished in view of the above problem, and another objective is to provide an image forming apparatus and a function setting method which enable to a desired function setting printed material by utilizing a previously formed function setting printed material.
Further, according to the conventional method, since only the apparatus can be controlled that has printed the sheet allocated with functions, in order to control the other apparatus, said apparatus needs to print the sheet by itself, which is inconvenient for users.
The present invention is accomplished in view of the above problem, and still another objective is to provide a printing system and a function setting method, which enable to easily set functions required of transiting plural screen, and similarly enable to set functions by any of several apparatuses connected to a network.